 Annelies, over to you. OK. Well, thank you very much, Ruba, for this very kind introduction. And of course, welcome to everybody. I'm very happy to see that so many people have taken the effort to be present here. It feels a little bit odd for me to speak to my own PowerPoint because I only see a few pictures, but I realize that there are many more people there, actually. And I would really like to thank Ruba, who is a very dear colleague and friend, as she said already. That she has invited me to give this presentation here today. So let me start immediately. Wait a moment. I am stuck here because... Yes. OK. What is happening? Yes, here we go. I was stuck for a moment because of the message of being recorded. Let me start with giving you an outline of my presentation. So how did I get interested in this topic? And I will take you very briefly to Yemen and then I'll take you back to Leiden University. Then I'll give this brief chronology from 2003 to 2019. And 2019 is the year in which we have this partial prohibition of face coverings turned into a law. I will explain to you how face fails have become a problem in the Netherlands and to whom they have become a problem. I will present to you the arguments against face fading. I will present to you also the perspectives of the Nicaraguan women themselves. Then I will say a few words about how the ban actually took hold and what happened in its aftermath, which involves a lot of Nicaraguan activism, actually. And finally, I will have a brief reflection on face fails and face masks because I think that is a way of what I would formulate as unmasking selective Dutch liberalism. So let me start immediately and go with you to Yemen briefly. In 2002, I was invited to teach a course on qualitative methodology at Sonar University in Yemen. Now, this was the first time I went to Yemen. It was also the first time I was teaching in Arabic. So I was already sort of anxious about this whole enterprise. But then I discovered that more than half of the students in my class were actually wearing a face fail. So I got more concerned because I was concerned, would I be able to understand them? Would I be able to communicate with the women? And would I be able to distinguish between them? So it took me a few days. And within a few days, I realized that these anxieties were largely unfounded because if you have the intention to communicate, which my students had, then you can actually communicate quite easily. And also I realized very quickly that my students were not only wearing a face fail, but I also had different styles of appearing. They were, some of them were tall, some of them were short. Some of them had, they had different kinds of voices and they especially had different kinds of presence in the classroom. That is, some of them were very present. They would ask questions all the time. They were definitely there. Whereas other students were much more withdrawn. They would, you know, not ask very much. They would sit in the back of the classroom. In other words, they actually very similar. The spread was very similar to what I was used to in the classroom in the Netherlands. I did also a small research project on there in the tapping Yemen. So, and I know the talk is not about that, but I want to just highlight a few points because they are very interesting because of the differences. One of them is that in Sana'a, wearing a face fail is a majority practice. So most of the women at the time when I did research were covering their face. That means that also it is the majority practice. So it also means that there may be some level of social pressure to actually wear a face fail. I quickly learned also that whether you wear one or not is very strongly context dependent. Some women, for instance, the women who were teaching at university would not wear it at a university itself, but they would change and wear a very different kind of outfit, including a face fail when they would go to the market. Because in the market, they would feel much more comfortable wearing a face fail because they were anonymous. So it was much easier for them to actually bargain with the traders in the market. Also, for instance, when wearing makeup they would completely cover. So they were all different. It was context dependent whether they would cover their face or not. Then of course, the topic always came of whether this was now an Islamic practice or not. And here the main point was that everybody agreed that there are differences of opinion about it. So it's not an obligatory practice for everybody. You have to use your own conscience. And there was actually an interesting section of usually younger women who decided to wear hijab Islam. Now, if you say in the Netherlands I'm going to wear hijab, it usually means that you start covering yourself more. If you say this in Sana'a, if you're going to wear hijab Islam, it meant to uncover it because you show your hands and your face. So it's a very different kind of dynamics at stake there. Okay, after my trip to Sana'a, I came back to Leiden University and lo and behold at Leiden University I discovered there was a great uproar because there were two students who were covering their face in the university. I found this an interesting thing was in particular to the kind of debate that this gave rise to. So I actually started then a research project and I wrote a report about this which was published in 2009 and which was actually interestingly enough subsidized by the Dutch government. So let me start now the short chronology about face failing in the Netherlands. In 2003, there was a school for adult education in Amsterdam. Two or three girls from Moroccan Dutch background decided to start wearing a face fail. The teacher didn't like it. The school wanted to prohibit it. The girls protested, they went to the Equal Treatment Commission and the Equal Treatment Commission says the school is right, they can have this local prohibition of face coverings. Now the interesting thing is that this is a major shift compared to the year 2000. In the year 2000, there was a very similar case in another city, but in that case, the Equal Treatment Commission decided that there were no legitimate reasons for a ban. But the most interesting thing actually was there was no media attention at all in 2000. Nobody was paying any attention to this particular case and I looked through all the newspapers and I see there are no attentional space to it in 2000. I see it was huge, a huge uproar. And the context is that there was from between 2000 and 2002, you have this watershed in Dutch politics. You have this extremely sharp turn to ethno-nationalism and right-wing populism. There's really, it's hard to overstate that particular shift in the Dutch political climate. There are a few things that are important to note here. First of all, that I use in the above the term face coverings and that is because they did not use the term face veils or burkas or nikabs, et cetera, because if they had used the term that is directly linked to a religion, then this would constitute direct discrimination of religion which is unconstitutional in Netherlands. Now, if you use the term face coverings, we would also include non-religious kinds of face coverings like a motor helmet or a bakalaba, then the argument of direct discrimination does no longer work. However, then the argument comes in that this may be indirect discrimination of religion, but in the case of indirect discrimination because it targets disproportionately a particular group of people. In that particular case, you can have a valid legitimation to do so and then the legitimation was security, I didn't need of identification and the need for communication in this school. So that is why it was actually, it turned out to be the legitimate. So this thing to notice here is then also that this was a local prohibition. It was just a prohibition at this particular school and once the Equal Treatment Commission had indeed pronounced that it was okay to have this ban ban at this particular school, the whole upward, quieted down and nobody was asking for a general ban or anything similar to that. However, in 2005, suddenly the Dutch parliament votes in favor of a complete ban that is in all public space. So not a ban we have now the partial ban but a complete ban. This was actually the first parliament that voted in favor of such a complete ban. So it was before France. Usually we think that France and Belgium were the first countries where this ban was being discussed. In the Netherlands, it was actually discussed beforehand. It was already voted in favor of in parliament. However, the resolution was proposed by Hirt Wilders. Hirt Wilders is of course our very well known anti-Islam politician. And Wilders made the argument that he wanted a complete ban of the Burqa in all public space because the Burqa is a symbol of women's oppression. It hinders identification. It hinders integration. It produces a parallel society and so forth and so on. But the way in which he formulated, did you see that immediately is that he uses the term Burqa. So it was already immediately clear that it would be unconstitutional. Okay, so there's a lot of discussion going on but then it's clear that this resolution cannot be turned into a law. Then in 2008, we get a proposal for a partial ban of face coverings, face coverings. So this becomes a constitutionally possible. And then you see between 2008, I'm not gonna bore you with everything that happened in between because between 2008 and 2019, you see the continuously shift depending upon the kind of the coalition government we have between attempts to have a complete ban or to have a partial ban. If he had a center right wing government, they wanted a complete ban. If he had a center left wing government, they wanted a partial ban. In the end, in 2019, we have then this partial ban of face coverings becoming a law. Now I would immediately put a big question mark at this whole term partial ban because it actually bans your presence if you cover your face in all educational institutions, in all health centers, in all public transportation and in all government buildings, which means it is de facto and possible for you if you wear a face scale to get access to any type of government service. So that is why I somewhat ironically wrote down here the Niktabi as consumer because the only thing you basically can do then is you can go on the street and you can go to the store. Now the question is then, how did this face fail become such a national issue? Again, we have to go back to Geert Wilders and he starts raising this issue during a debate on security, on radical Islam, security, et cetera. And he points them to the fact that in Belgium, there is already a local ban in one particular city and that we should also have a ban but then a national ban in the Netherlands. How at the very same time, because he gives them an interview, a very long interview and one of the populist newspapers and in that article itself is recognized that there is not yet a problem in the Netherlands with face failing women. The problem that was there in 2003 had been solved. There were no other issues at all with respect to face failing. So there is a very strong recognition that there is no problem but Wilders says, well, I will turn it into a problem. And actually you have other politicians who follow suit such as one of the Christian Democrats. He also, he's interviewed at a certain moment and the interviewer says to him, but do you realize that using the term Burka, et cetera, this will be unconstitutional? And of course the guy really says, yes, I do realize this, but the value is not necessarily that we get this law actually on the books. The value is that we raise this as a problem. So we turn this into a problem that needs to be debated in public debate. So it's a very active attempt to politicize wearing a face fail. You can also see this when you look at the media coverage for the, in the first decade of this century, because except for the year 2003, and what I already told you about school in Amsterdam, there was always media attention because it was raised, the issue was raised by politicians or people in parliament. And they raised it as an issue and then you'll get the attention in the media. You also see something very interesting with respect to the universities. I already mentioned Leiden University, Leiden University did the same thing as the school. They also did a local prohibition, which is possible because they use the same kind of formulation. And then you get these other universities that are following suit. So the picture you see there on the bottom is from a university paper of the Free University and you see all this press attention and this guy speaking. Well, this was a debate about the ban on face coverings at the Free University. So of course one raises then, or I mean the question then comes up from how many students are there actually? And every single time, except for Leiden, every single time the answer was none. There is no student yet wearing a face coverings but you never know, they may appear and then we are ready for it and we don't have to think about this again. That was the argument. So what kind of problem, how do people see this as a problem? Well, they see the point that the points that I found again raised are women's oppression, security, communication, participation. There we go. Let's go first to women's oppression. Let's first have a little bit of an image about who are the people we are talking about. There are about 100 to 500 women and I stretch it wide because I include both the women who wear it fairly consistently and the ones who wear it only part time. Part time it means that they wear it at some occasions but not at other occasions. Some would not wear it, for instance, if they go and visit their family. Some would only wear it when they go to a mosque. So people have different ways of going about it. So say 100 to 500 about, but even if it's a thousand, the population of the Netherlands is 17 million. So it means that you have a chance of about one in 300,000 on average that you would meet somebody wearing a face veil. Now, of course, I also realize that in certain neighborhoods it is more common than in other neighborhoods but nonetheless, it's a minute number of people. Now these women are not recent refugees. They're not recent migrants. They're mainly converts and women of Moroccan Dutch background who have been raised in the Netherlands. So they're basically Dutch Muslims. But it's not a force coming from outside. It's really, they are Dutch Muslims. As it turns out, their families and their husbands are often against it. So it's not so much pressure from the families what was in the beginning often assumed. Pressure from the families or pressure from their husbands that they need to cover. They're more often against it. They don't like it. They try to prohibit it. They try to discourage it. Many of the women express that they do this because of religious reasons. And I say many of the women because of course we can never have an complete image. We can never say on academic grounds that everybody, because there can always be somebody who is forced by her family or somebody who is in a very difficult situation. But because I have talked to so many of them, I can say that many women actually do this because they consider it a highly desirable religious practice and they do so. And they have different formulations. And I thought it was interesting to present to some of the terms they use themselves. They call it an act of worship, a means of getting closer to God, a way of expressing their love for God, a way of being more in love again with Islam of doing something extra. They call it they feel as if they're floating in the air. They feel being at peace with themselves. So these are just some of the terms that the women themselves use. And so you can see already that it is quite a strong, effective language. Then covering the face is also a disciplinary sartorial practice, very similar to what Sabah Mahmood has actually discussed in her books, The Politics of Fiety, when she writes about the most movement in Egypt, where you wear a particular style of dress, not simply to express your interior feelings, but also to produce a more modern self and to produce a more desexualized society. And they also use aesthetic terms once in a while. They call it also beautiful. They call it a harmonious way of looking, a simple way, they call it complete. So they use these kinds of terms to describe their style of dress. And I highlight that because if you listen to our politicians who also regularly feel the need to express their feelings about how they experience this style of dress, they would usually phrase it, they find it ugly, they find it disgusting. So they use all these very strong, effective notions, but very negative kind of notions, which of course is also in some ways understandable because if you see something as the embodiment of women's oppression, then it also comes with a certain affective, you get a certain, it has a certain effect then, if you are looking at this particular person. The last point here is that, especially in the earlier years, the term Burkha was used all the time in the Netherlands. It's only more recently that people turn to the term Niqab, which is the term the women themselves use. And the term Burkha in itself had this sort of performative power because this was at the time of the war in Afghanistan and the term Burkha was known amongst the wider Dutch public as synonym with the Taliban and women's oppression under the Taliban. So the use of this term Burkha in itself had a particular, a particular strong, effective effect as it were. Now, if you look at the ways in which people actually were in the Netherlands when they covered their face, it's much more like a style as women in Egypt would wear or in the Gulf would wear. It's not the kind of Burkha that women in Afghanistan wear which has the little mesh in front of the eyes, et cetera. Now, the other arguments were security and participation. Security, yeah, unfortunately for the government, the security didn't really work very well because the security services, the police, public transportation, all were not in favor of the ban because they didn't recognize it as a problem. They didn't recognize face fails as a problem. And I mean, the chances that you actually have somebody in public transport who wears a face fail are very small and usually the person doesn't, you know, do anything else except being present. So public transportation has much more serious problems with violent young men rather than with the ones with the very few face fading women that they are confronted with. And moreover, public transportation sector itself said, well, we already have the means to act if you need to because we can impose house rules. So in a very similar way as the school had done in Amsterdam, also public transportation could actually make house rules that you cannot enter public transportation if you cover your face. The painful thing about the whole thing is however, is that in this discussions about security, the women are seen as a security threat, but there is a very, very little concern about the ways in which women, these women themselves are at risk of verbal or physical violence that is virtually completely neglected. And what became already clear in the research that I did was that there was a strong link between being at risk of verbal and physical violence and the moments at which the Nicar became really a topic of public, of political debate. So at the moment when politicians felt free to make all sorts of their regulatory statements about covering the face, then people in the street also felt more legitimized to actually do the same. So the women were actually more, in those moments were more at risk than they would have been otherwise. The other argument is participation and when the government talks about participation, they usually have some idealized notion about women's participation in formal employment and the measuring rod seems to be the sort of professional, middle class women, secular, et cetera, who have a career. Now, many women in the matter of Netherlands do not live up to that ideal. Also, Nicaris do generally not live up to that ideal. So it all depends where you compare them with because we have then what becomes, what many women who wear Nicar would say is important to them that is religion and taking care of their raising their children well, taking care of the family raising their children well. Although more recently also work has become a more important topic, but if you compare that for instance, with the strict protestants, where we also have a considerable number of in the Netherlands, then you see that these ways of these kinds of ideals are actually quite similar. What you also see, of course, is that this ban, which bans them from education, et cetera, actually excludes them from participating in society. And actually also punishes them because if they are seen as the victim because they are oppressed, then it becomes even more complex to understand how the government can actually make this into a logical train of thought. Now, I want to go do a little sight line here and turn to popular culture because it's hard to imagine, I mean, it's not hard to imagine, but I mean, I would like to highlight how immensely present this particular topic was between 2005 and 2008. It was really very strong 2007. It was really very, very present. So you also had these cartoonists who made cartoons about women, you know, the Burka babes here because what the Burka babes is actually there. I will show you also here. It's a booklet like this. And it has all the little cartoons in there and it comes in a bag, very shiny bag. But originally these cartoons were published in an upscale daily. So every so many days, there would be a cartoon about the Burka babes. So this, they became tremendously popular and they were turned into this booklet first. They were in Dutch and then it was translated in English so I'll show you a few of them. And I show you two because I think they are so strongly because they really illustrate the sort of narrative I just have presented. Looking forward to spring, now I'll have to ask my husband. And the other one, you know where the radicalization comes in. Oh, I get it. The boys go all fundamentalist and your left is the donkey work. So you see actually, I think it's a very strong illustration of, you know, the sort of the ways in which the Nikad has been constructed in Dutch public debate. They also have a very different genre, a little bit, a more, if you want to say more optimistic genre, that is Aziz Bakawi, who is an artist and a fashion designer and he turned the Burka actually in visual art and creatively played with it in fashion advertising billboards. So he had this exhibit of these glossy billboards with these elegant powerful, playful women which I will show in a second. And in combination with slight adaptations of famous advertising slogans. And his argument was that this was a way of normalizing the presence of the Burka. So here we go. This was Aziz's, I just downloaded from the website. So this is the sort of thing, you know, playing on the L'Oreal slogan. And this is the one playing on McDonald's. He has a whole series of them, but I just thought two would be sufficient to show to you. So you see how this whole public discourse also then moves into all kinds of forms of popular culture, art, et cetera. They're very unpleasant ones, also which I'm not going to show because they're too unpleasant. Not from Aziz, of course, but I thought these two give you sort of a, the kinds of image what is, what was available in those days. So let's get back to something more serious now. That is the cabinet analysis of face coverings. Because if you look at, I finished up a document from 2008 and it's really interesting how they actually discuss this issue of the problem with face coverings. So here the cabinet is, the document is speaking, they evidently face coverings, evidently hinder open communication. They are considered as women unfriendly and to many they are a symbol of fundamentalist Islam that does not suit Dutch society. This style of dress evokes in many a feeling of anxiety and unsafety and the cabinet considers open communication between citizens, participation and equal chances for men and women essential values of Dutch society and our democratic rule of law. So you see how in this one document you move very quickly from a face fail hindering open communication to a face fail actually being an obstacle to the democratic rule of law. Seems to be quite a step to be taken here. So let's look a little closer at that. Now let's first remember that the prohibition also in 2008 that was being discussed was a prohibition for particular locations. The arguments on the previous sheets were basically arguments that were relating to the street, how we appear in the street. So that brings up question, I'll just raise the questions. Do we need to always communicate in the street? Isn't there similar problems when people are on their cell phones all the time? Communicating on the street is often very gendered and can also be very unpleasant. So this whole idea of celebrating communication, I find somewhat problematic there. Then if we go away from the street to these particular interactions in the health sector in education, et cetera, there it is a different story. There what matters and that is what the women themselves would also say, it matters whether you make an effort. And this effort has to be made both by the women themselves as they would say, and they're interlocking. So you have to be willing to actually talk to each other. So I'll give you an example, one of the women said, well, when I go to the doctor's office, well, first of all, usually when they go to the doctor when they're in the office, this doctor will simply take off their face. But she says, when I'm waiting in the waiting room of the doctor's office, and I always make sure that I speak loud and clearly in Dutch with my children. So the people know that I'm just Dutch and I speak Dutch, et cetera. And I'll also make sure that my hands are always visible. So people do not worry about what is she doing underneath all this clothing. So people already have this sort of make an attempt to accommodate in certain ways. They realize that people look at them in a certain way and they try to accommodate. They will criticize others who do not do so. The other point is, is discomfort actually an argument for a prohibition? Because if this would be, if you feel discomfort when you see somebody in the street dressed in a particular way, would that be also then valid for other ways of appearing in the public? Would it be simply the sort of thing, the majority rules here? And is seeing facial expressions actually needed for living together? And there is behind this is actually a whole theory about what facial expressions do. So do you wish your facial expressions, do you actually show your feelings or are you sometimes also hiding these? Maybe you have also many sayings that you have to be careful and never trust something on face value, for instance. But there are many ways in which you have to be also very careful in how a person appears in the public. And does it not also matter what sort of feelings the person is expressing? Is it always desirable to be confronted with, is it always desirable that somebody actually expresses this inner feelings in their facial expressions to be in open communication? In some cases, it may be more desirable if people do not show all their feelings in the public. It's a bit similar, a bit I say to the discussions about freedom of speech. However, of course you're allowed to say all sorts of stuff but whether it is desirable to actually do so, to live together in a somewhat pleasant way, that is a different question. So what I actually think is going on here is that this discomfort which we are discussing is actually the effect of a certain kind of dissonance. And the dissonance is the following. On the one hand, the women are seen as oppressed because of Islam. And this comes back time and again, it's also in 2019, you will still hear the same argument in parliament. The women are, these women are oppressed, we have to do something about that. So these women are oppressed and yet they appear hyper visible in the public as actually they have a strong presence. You know, they're not hiding, they have a strong presence in the public. So you can compare the, I also always like to play a little bit with this idea of divisor effect. The women are able to see, but they are not, their face is not completely seen. So that in a sense clashes with the conventional notion that those in power remain invisible, they are entitled to remain invisible, whereas those in subaltern positions are often the object of scrutiny. So I think that the discomfort comes forth, it emerges much more by the fact that these women have a strong presence, not that they are oppressed, but they are actually strong characters. And that is the, I mean, that is, that is one of the reasons why this discomfort is so often referred to. So what, where are we now? We have just, there is no clear problem with these very, this very small number of women appearing in the public. And it's not simply the small number because of course, you know, the number of murders in the country is also small, but it also depends what a person does. Now they do not cause any particular kinds of problems. And if there are problems, they can be solved through house rules. So we are faced with a form of symbolic politics, but we also have seen already that these symbolic politics are not innocent, but have effects. They have, they cause problems for the women themselves. And it will give you one other example why, what is the problem with this symbolic politics? And that is that it leads to a huge overestimation of the number of women actually in the Netherlands, which in itself couses fear and discomfort. I'm showing you here the estimate, there was a poll in two, again, in two times then eight, there was a poll in the Netherlands about how people felt about women covering their face, which is not so interesting, but the most interesting thing is the last question. The last question was, how many women do you think where the face fell in the Netherlands? The actual number is between 100 and 500, right? 17% thought it was more than 20,000. 31% thought it was more than 10,000. So this discrepancy is huge. So it is not surprising that people feel uncomfortable if they have gotten the idea that there are so many women wearing a face fail in the Netherlands, which seems to be the effect of all this media attention, all this attention in politics. At a certain moment, we had five ministers in a parliamentary meeting talking for five hours about these 100 to 500 women. So I mean, it does create a particular kind of atmosphere which gives people apparently the impression that they're far more than they actually are. Now, how have people responded actually? What kind of NICAP activism is there? In 2009, there was nothing. We tried to, with a group of people, we tried to see whether they were interested in writing a petition or a letter to protest against this law, but there was people were, the NICAPs were so concerned about appearing in the public that they did not really want to take part in this kind of a debate. This changed by the time it was 2015 about. I'm not quite exact about the year, but it's around that time when it became clear that this law would actually materialize because laws in the Netherlands, as elsewhere, have to go through all sorts of cycles. They have to go first to the lower chamber than to the Senate. And then they have to have the advice of the Council of State. Now, the Council of State has always been usually critical and has remained until today very critical about this law because they consider it problematic because there is no problem and because the solution is disproportional for the, of having a ban. So the Council of State has remained very critical, but nobody had actually, as they know, nobody had thought that the Parliament would totally negate the advice of the Council of State, which is what happens. So once it became clear that the Council of State would be critical, but that Parliament would actually not follow the advice of the Council of State, then the women started organizing and there was a group of about, at the beginning about eight women, that started the group do not touch my kneecap. And that is the picture you see. It's a Facebook group and it says in Dutch, my choice. And they wrote a letter to Parliament, protesting against it and making all the arguments that I have made also previously. So they made all these arguments and they were usually disappointed because they got very, very little support by Muslim organizations. Basically all the Muslim representatives who function as representatives of Muslim communities to the Dutch state actually supported the state in the ban. So they were usually disappointed. So the letter to Parliament was only signed and supported by a small number of Salafi-oriented mosques and organizations, some more general women organizations and a few academics, but that was basically it. So it was quite a disappointment. And the same time in 2015, also an other group emerged, which is called Report Islamophobia. And this was a small group of Muslim women who became increasingly concerned with the fact that Islamophobic incidents were nowhere as recorded. It was impossible to know how many of these incidents were taking place and what was the backgrounds of these incidents. I will get back to that in a second because this group is also important. So we get now the ban on one August, 2019. And what you see then is a very quick emergence of activism. And one of the reasons why you get this enormous, this upsurge of activism is because one of our newspapers decides to run on the very same day to run a long article about how to do a citizen's arrest. A citizen's arrest means that as the newspaper explained, if you see somebody in a Burqa, where she is not allowed to be and you feel uncomfortable, you are allowed to do a citizen's arrest, to arrest the person and to hold her until the police shows up. This, of course, circulated very quickly in right-wing circles, et cetera. And this finally woke up a lot of people who would previously not have cared very much about this topic. And then you get a group like the Burqa Bodies. The Burqa Bodies is a group support group for, as it says in Dutch, Diabrilo. It's again, it's Facebook-based. And it's a group for support and protection of women wearing niqab who want to go in the public, who are concerned about going into the public sphere and they offer to accompany them when they want to go somewhere. And that is the idea. And you can become a member of the Facebook group, Burqa Bodies, and it's very quickly mushroomed and they have all regional, regional smaller organizations and et cetera. It was really started by niqabis and other Muslim women themselves and then also included non-Muslims. So that was usually successful. Then the women, the niqabis themselves, decided that they were going to have, I call it their demonstration, they would call it a silent protest probably. And what happened is that they decided to have to do something. We are already also realized that they were too late, of course, because the law was already implemented. But they decided nonetheless to have this silent protest to at least do something. And there was this quite large, I've never seen actually so many niqab. I said, nobody has seen so many niqab. Look probably your neck. Yes. Okay. Nobody, I don't think anyone has seen so many niqab. And you've got two sides and then you're gonna finish off with that. Okay. Should I stop or? Yeah, yeah, sorry. Someone has forgotten to unmute. Oh, okay. No problem. Okay. So I'll continue. So there was this, they organized this demonstration. It was a huge demonstrations, maybe a big word. It was about 100, 150 people. But taking into consideration how small the number of women wearing a niqab in the Netherlands is that it's quite a considerable number because the potential number of them were niqab errors. But there were also other people from different backgrounds there because one of the most interesting things was it was actually organized by a group called Hand in Hand Against the Niqab, then, which was a group of niqab wearing women, but they had managed to have links with all sorts of different groups. So there were anti-racist groups. There are people from anti-racist groups there from the LBTG community were there, et cetera. So it was really a very broad coalition of people coming together at this silent protest. But it was really organized by the women themselves. And so it was clearly a demonstration against the ban. It was not a position on wearing niqab, whether that's a good thing to do or not. It was against the ban. And one of the things that I found striking again here is that actually in parliament, there were complaints that, well, the argument in parliament, we have this law now, so people should submit to the law and not demonstrate against it. Which is, of course, a very strange argument because it happens all the time. It's one of our civil rights, actually, to have demonstrations. So, and they had simply followed all the rules. They had contacted the municipality. They have followed all the rules and regulations. But nonetheless, there was this sort of very strong apprehension that is now actually would speak against, speak out against this law. So you have a picture there. We are victims of symbol and symbolic politics. And this gives you an impression of the demonstration. So one of the things that was also very interesting and which I became aware of because I was present at one of them, is that one of the women, Karima Rahmani, who is the spokesperson for keep off, don't touch my niqab, and she became a very vocal spokesperson. And this became tremendously unsettling to people who were arguing that these women were terribly oppressed because in below is a screenshot from a meeting that was two months after the prohibition was had materialized because then you have somebody there sitting arguing, you know, all these women are oppressed and it's horrible. And it's also, it's not simply that they are oppressed, but it's also a symbol of oppression, et cetera, et cetera. And then there's actually somebody sitting next to her wearing a niqab who then answers and says, yes, but I don't feel oppressed, and has this whole story. And then the other person says, yes, well, maybe you don't feel oppressed. No, I believe you, that you are not oppressed. But so many women in Iran or in Afghanistan are oppressed, which is, of course, a completely different situation, which then Karima says, of course this is a very different situation but we're talking about the Netherlands now and I'm not oppressed. And by the way, for me, it's not a symbol at all a symbol of oppression. For me, it's a symbol of religiosity, et cetera. So, I mean, and this I think is something that has worked strongest, you know, the fact that actually the niqab is by themselves taking part in the discussion now. Then the group I mentioned previously, Report Islamophobia, has produced a black paper about the Burkaban and they call it a plea for abolishing the Burkaban. And some of their conclusions are, first of all, that there has been a sharp increase in the verbal and physical attacks, which does not come as a surprise because it fits very much with the previous research on the moment politicians raised this issue, then the street follows as it were. The striking thing was, however, that also women who are wearing niqab where this is not prohibited were attacked and were verbally abused. So it was usually, it was usually not in schools, it was usually not in medical centers, et cetera, but it was just simply on the street or they were refused entry into a playground because the person who was in charge of the playground thought this was prohibited, which it wasn't. So you get, so this spreads, you know, this slips into all sorts of this ban, spreads to all sorts of directions because also women who were only wearing niqab then were attacked and they were told that, well, this will also be prohibited very soon and you shouldn't be wearing this et cetera, et cetera. So this whole atmosphere, the whole, it's got almost like a life of its own. So that is the women themselves, but I think there's also a more general polarization that is the effect of this and that is because it's up to, as I said, it's up to the sectors to implement the ban. So, you know, the security guards, the bus drivers, et cetera, they have some discretion there. They do not, they are not punishable by law if they do not enforce the ban. So they can actually, you know, sort of chose and see what to do. At the same time, the mayors of the big cities and the police had said, well, this is not a priority issue for us. So if somebody rings us up, you know, we have here somebody who's a niqab, we usually have a lot of other stuff that has higher priority. So that means that then the security guards, bus drivers, et cetera, they actually have to decide what to do and they may themselves have different opinions, but also the public around them may have different opinions. So they may also feel either being pushed to act in one way or another because they are pressured by the public around them. So you can understand that this gives rise to a lot of tension and unpleasant situations. So a few weeks ago, the conclusion was one year after the book ban that no fines, there had been no fines at all for the women concerned and only four warnings. But I think this very much underestimates the negative effects of the law on people. You know, you do not need to have fines and a large number of warnings to still have a negative effect. There are of course also the positive effect the people who got moving, right? They got into action. There was also a very moving example of a woman in the south of the country who lives in a small place and had to travel by bus and this became an increasingly problematic thing because it was a bus driver who did really not want her on his bus, et cetera. So then there was actually a collection, a money collection for her to be able to actually get her driver's license. So she would be able to go to work by car. So these things also happen at the same time. Now we get to the last thing, the face masks, a reflection on the face masks. From one July 2020 on, because of COVID, in the Netherlands, you are obliged to wear a face mask if you go on public transportation. The question is, of course, that at the same time we have a law that states that we are not allowed to cover our faces when we go into public transportation. Now there is a legal exception to this law and the legal exception is that if you need to cover your face for health, for reasons you actually can do so. So that was the loophole that they used for this. But then the problematic issue we can, that the outbreak management team, which is a Dutch committee that advises the government on COVID-related issues at the highest level. So they're very influential. They have actually stayed at time in the Netherlands, no evidence that wearing a non-medical face mask actually protects you. So you get this very, and this is quite an extraordinary position. I won't go into that now, but the Netherlands has a quite exceptional position with respect to face masks. But anyway, so they think the highest medical authority thinks it has no health effects, yet it's used as a legal exception to allow face masks on public transportation. The question then becomes, of course, is wearing a kneecap not also permissible because it also covers your nose and your mouth and is wearing a kneecap sufficient to fulfill these obligations, to actually wear a face mask in public transportation. So this leads to all sorts of poster making, et cetera. So this is made by a Nikaibi woman herself, who this is of course a waiting space to board public transportation. So one is allowed, the other one is not. And this is actually one of the most interesting things because by now the government has made a statement that you actually are allowed to go on public transportation wearing a face mask, that you can do so. It's still not clear whether it's sufficient, but you are allowed to wear a face mask. That does not mean that there are no problems, but I mean, you are allowed to do this is the official point of view. So, but that's on public transportation because on public transportation, it is at the moment obligatory to cover your face. Now, this is the door of a mother and child center. In a mother and child center, it is advisable, but it's not obligatory to cover your face. So you have two posters. One is please wear a face mask and the top one to protect everybody. The lower one and the same door is prohibited to wear a face covering. And I'll show you the lower one in more detail. The lower one is, it has the whole narrative. First one is the locations where you are prohibited from covering your face. Then the second one is kind of face coverings that are prohibited. The third one is that, why is this the case? Because we have to communicate with each other which you cannot do when you cover your face. And the fourth is about the fine that you will get if you cover your face. So, what I've said is that actually you are now allowed to go into public transportation wearing a face veil in the top, but still we have the same problems are still occurring that in some settings that women are refused because they wear a face veil. So then they know by now that they actually are entitled to do so. So they have to make an argument with the bus driver and they have to tell them, you know you have to call your superiors because I know I'm allowed to be on the bus. So there are still, all these things are still going on. Sometimes even people who, even women who wear a face mask and hijab, you know, and cover their hair, get comments or are refused because it looks as if they're wearing a face veil. So there was actually a case of a woman who got into a discussion with, I think it was, I don't know whether it was a bus driver or a security guard, it was a security guard. This is a female security guard. And so the security guard said, well, you're not allowed in here because you are wearing a face cover. And they said, well, I'm wearing a mouth mask, you know a face mask, I'm allowed to do this. Why, what's the problem? And then the woman actually said to her, well, yes but in the case of other people I can see their hair and in your case, I can't see your hair. And there is of course no obligation in the Netherlands to uncover your hair, right? I mean, so this becomes a very convoluted kind of argumentation, all of which makes it of course very obvious that it's not about covering the face but it's covered. It's about the position of Muslims in our society. So the last thing about the face masks now is what will the effects of these face masks be about, you know, on the on the ban? Now, parliament actually voted, somebody brought it into parliament and parliament voted against the temporary lifting the ban. I'll show it in a second. And I think what matters very much is again that also not only indicates of the face fail interpretations matter, but also indicates of face masks, interpretations matter. So there are people who value wearing face masks positively as a sign of caring for others, et cetera who will have a much more positive view about, you know this whole issue about face masks. Then the people who consider this as a mandatory top-down in position that limits your freedom, et cetera, et cetera, which would produce a different set of feelings that would produce anger, resentment, et cetera. So if you want to think about what the effect may be of this whole issue of face masks now about face fails, and if you want to go beyond the legal thing, I would have done till now, then I think the first thing that you would need to do is take into consideration what is the meaning actually of wearing face masks to people. This is the vote in parliament, by the way, whether there would be a temporary lifting of the ban on face coverings. And you can see that only two political parties were in favor of lifting it. Now, my final point is that actually what we are seeing is of course that we have here a politicization of the NICAP that we see a form of symbolical politics that nonetheless is not innocent but actually produces problems. Both problems for the women, but I think also wider societal problems. The problem with face coverings is very clearly because it involves a category of people who have been turned into undesirable Muslim women. The context of this whole thing is the turn to ethno-nationalism and to right-wing populism, which produces a notion of the nation which is strongly homogenizing and which actually goes into the direction of I think an extreme form of materialism. You can also see that it's not a divide between Muslims and non-Muslims. I already said some of these Muslim representatives actually supported the government. So you can actually see that sometimes good Muslims are easily included in this homogenizing nation or national belonging. Although it's never very, it's always an unstable situation, but the bottom line is of course that you see the scapegoating of a very small group of women. At the same time, what you see is the emergence of a new generation of very self-confident Muslims who demand their civil rights, including their rights to wear kneecaps. So it includes also kneecaps themselves and there is no who actually, you can read this very easily as, you know, there is no space anymore for white paternalism. And you can see that both in the case of the kneecap and in the case of the face mask that interpretation matters. So this is, you know, so the whole, well, I guess the clearest is this, this is what you see here. Actually, we have had so many issues now that really target Muslims in a very unpleasant way recently that one of the parliamentarians actually tabled a resolution. And the resolution was very basic. The resolution was, can we say, can we actually make a statement that Islam is part of the Netherlands? And that Muslims are equal citizens. And there were still, well, two of these crosses, these red crosses are individuals, but there are still three political parties that voted against that. So you can look of course, very optimistically at this and say, well, the majority, say 15, 85% of parliamentarians voted for this, agreed with it. But nonetheless, I think it's also very concerning that 15% of our representatives in parliament actually vote against the statement that Muslims are equal citizens. I will leave it at that, thank you. Stop sharing. So thank you so much, analysts, for these really profound, interesting, also really engaging and clear presentation that takes us back to the early 2000, which is also the year where me and you together started to think about, at the time, the issue of the hijab as well after the Affair de Foulart in France. And so in fact, why people are gathering their ideas, I would really kind of ask you the question in relation to why do you think the focus on the Nicarb is assuming this really specific connotation? What is different between the banning of the Nicarb and the banning of the hijab? And how did the banning of the Nicarb in the Netherlands legitimized or not the hijab at that point? I'm interested to see whether and how the Nicarb censorship was also aiming at legitimizing certain forms of Islamic sartorial practices as acceptable or tolerable, or whether the Nicarb was just perceived and represented as the extreme version of something that is absolutely unacceptable to start with, including any visible expression of Islam in the public sphere. Together with this, I think that it, I mean, one of the most interesting aspects of your talk was that it was clearly showing, and interestingly, I think, but clearly showing that the dissonance also between the politicization on the one hand of this practice and the very effective, at least at the beginning, the very effective or pious or ethical nature of the practice itself for the women who wear the Nicarb. And then at the end, instead, you provide us with an image and with a representation of the Nicarb becoming an issue of rights and of civil rights. So turning away from the effective pious dimension women are now mobilizing for their own rights. And I wonder whether you could kind of elaborate a little bit more on that and how, what do you think about that transformation? There are lots of questions in the chat, so I guess maybe we can, I don't know what... Can I start with these very complicated questions used to be true at me already? Yeah, okay, but... You want me to do that? I mean, I thought that maybe we can collect if like... Okay, it's also fine. We kind of give the floor to the audience and then you can just address all of them together. Well, there is Miriam in the chat. Miriam, do you want to pose the question or should I read it? I guess if she put it there, she wants me to read it out. Her comment is, what an incredible, fascinating presentation. Thank you, big question, big affirmation mark. I know much of your work, but this comparison with real life COVID measures that also involve face coverage really highlights double standards. We see in terms of ethics, our moral obligation to protect each other in one case and our moral sense of solidarity when we want to defend the wearing of her first veil on the other, but the letter is much easier rejected. What has been your experience among Dutch academic peers regarding these moral paradox? I'd expect that what you say is broadly shared at Dutch universities or is it considered an exception to the liberal rule? So very interesting and important question. Laura Miárez asks, also thank you very much for your interesting talk. I have a concrete question. Could you please explain how the Dutch feminist movement has positioned itself towards the Nicaraguan? Are there any differences among different feminist movements? And then we have... I'll say I read the third one and then I'll let you, I guess, engage us. So Marlos Janssen, a colleague of mine at the Department of Anthropology and your country fellow, asks, thanks a lot. Anilis, fascinating presentation and great to learn so many new things about my country. I have two leaves. Sorry, this is not a question. It's an announcement that she had to leave. Okay, bye-bye. I'll let you answer, I guess, the first four. Yes, okay, okay. Let me start with the... It's all complicated. Let me start with the very interesting point that you raised, Ruben, and that is the point about that in the beginning, when I was talking, there was a lot about the ethics, the ethical arguments that the women would bring and that in the later part of the talk, the point of rights really came up. And I think that is very well... That's a very good analysis. Nonetheless, for the whole period, the arguments that women bring, why they wear the deca, are always ethical arguments. They are wearing it because of religious reasons and these religious reasons may take different forms. That's why I gave you the different kinds of examples, right? But they're all grounded in a sort of notion of ethical being. A sort of ethos, a sort of where they want to go. However, their protest against the Nica Ben is very firmly located in a rights discourse. So you have these two discourses that they both draw in for very different reasons. The reason to wear it is very much an ethical discourse. The reason why they speak out or the ways in which they speak out is very much against double standards, equal citizenship, et cetera. And that is why I also made a point that you can really see that we have a second generation of young Muslims in the Netherlands who are perfectly well aware of the fact that they have equal rights and that their equal rights are quite systematically undermined by these kinds of measures. And a lot of them will not be themselves in favor of wearing a Nica. They wouldn't think about wearing a Nica. That's not the point. The point is that they are against the Ben. So these are two very different kinds of depensants where you're focusing on. It is also true that in the beginning there were more women who would have been hesitant about making any rights claims because some of them were very much followed the line that one actually should not become politically active. That political activism is not something that is highly valued in Islam. Okay. So there is that element, but that's definitely not the only element. I think that it's much more, this whole notion of becoming an equal, having equal rights as a citizen is very important. So that is how I would read that. So it's not the case that the women who now face will do so only because they want to make this claim on equal rights. It is true though that a few women actually started wearing it after the Ben because they wanted to support their sisters, right? So there is a bit of that element there, but by and large, the reasons why women really wear it consistently because it is a hard thing to do. It's not an easy thing to do day after day after day. So it's a hard thing to do. So really you need to have a very strong religious motivation to do so. Now it's also true that it is a fluctuating population. So it's not the case that the women who wore it in 2005 will be still wearing it. There are also quite a number of women who have given up wearing it for different reasons. Some because they consider it too dangerous, other ones because they do not consider it anymore having the same religious value as they thought in the past. And so there are different reasons why they give it up also. So that about that issue. Then let me see. Oh yes, the feminist movement. Well, that is of course a, I think that is true in many countries. That the feminist movement has, I think we should speak in the plural feminist movements. That it depends very much what kind of feminist movement you're talking about because we have in the Netherlands definitely a section of the feminist movement, which is very much against wearing the cap. And which thinks this is an extremely conservative, that is just simply supporting a very conservative, very women unfriendly ideology. That is another part of the feminist movement is much more open and is much more following the line of the equal rights thing. Not necessarily arguing that they are for the Nicar, but they do reason in terms of equal citizenship, et cetera. So they argue against the ban. But the first category would actually be often also in favor of the ban because they think it's a really undesirable practice. And they simply will not believe it when a woman says, well, I chose this and then they will make the argument. Yes, well, people chose all sorts of conservative things, but that's not the reason we should support this. So we actually have a section, which is a section of which is in the, if you look politically, that you would call them social Democrats of the labor party that are very critical of the labor party because they are too Muslim friendly and they too much talk with imams rather than with people who want to leave Islam and liberal Muslims, et cetera. So they feel that they're supporting too much in their interactions, the more conservative side of Islam. And these people would be also, you would also see quite a lot of women involved in that. Both women, both, you know, white Dutch women and women from my background. So there is, it's not a clear cut. It's not a clear cut division in terms of identity, but it's much more a division in terms of political projects. You know, what do you think, what do you think politics should be about and what kind of, what is the kind of politics that you would be willing to support? I think that is would be my answer on the feminist movements in the Netherlands. There's a Miriam's question on the... Yeah, I'm getting there, I'm getting there. We'll talk about the colleagues. Oh yeah, the colleagues, yeah, the colleagues. That is not a very pleasant question, I think. It's a very good question because I think that one of the mistakes that we are often making is assuming that right-wing, I think it's, by now it has become obvious, but at least some years ago it was a bit less obvious, but that ethno-nationalism is also alive very much amongst our colleagues, that we also have academic, that this is the whole idea. I think I'm really very, very hesitant about this whole idea that populism, right-wing populism is really something only for, you know, for the lower classes in society for the poor whites. I think this is not at all the case. I think that you also have the same kind of ideas, the same kind of ideas, who is actually defining what Dutchness is, that it is also very much something that is alive and kicking amongst the upper middle classes and let's be serious because if you talk about segregation, because one of the big discussions is now about segregation, right? These migrants all segregate in their own areas, in their own circles, et cetera. What is the most segregated sector of society? Of course, the upper middle class professionals, they're far more segregated from society than people who live in the poor neighborhoods. I'm completely convinced that, you know, the ways in which we look at it is very, very one-sided. And actually we do have colleagues, I had a highly unpleasant Dutch colleague but working at Berlin University, I had a highly unpleasant Twitter exchange with my colleague Ruth Koopmans, for instance, at Berlin University who called me a reactionary, oh yeah, but I had done something very, very, is unforgivable, is that I compared at a certain moment wearing a face veil with wearing high heels. And the reason why I compared it, which he didn't get, was because the question was, you know, somebody made a comment and the person said, well, a niqab is discriminatory for women because only women wear it, men do not wear it. So then I said, well, there are other styles of dress that are only worn by women, but that does not necessarily mean it's discriminatory. Take, for instance, high heels and you can actually make an argument that that's worse for your health. So I got this whole sort of, you know, outcry on Twitter that I did actually dare to make this comparison, which was, I think still is a very interesting comparison. I wrote a piece in Dutch about it. So the argument that this is something that you would not find about your Dutch colleagues is definitely not the case. We also have amongst, we have amongst, the whole idea that you do not find these kinds of ideas in academia is I think very false. Actually, one of them, let me give another example and then I'll stop about this topic. Another example, the person who was until yesterday, the representative of Forum for Democracy, Forum for Democracy is a sort of the intellectual counterpart of Wilders Party. So it's very right-wing, neuro-sceptical, conservative, populist, et cetera. Very anti-immigration, also anti-Muslim. So the person who until yesterday was the representative of this particular political party in the Senate is a professor of law at Leiden University. So I mean, the whole idea that we at our universities, you know, are all these sort of pleasant people who do not go for discrimination, et cetera, et cetera. I think it's also very much using double standards. There are lots of other questions in the chat. Tell me what you want me to answer, Uba. Yeah, I mean, there is also a possibility for anyone who wants to just ask the question by unmuting yourself and raising your hand if you want to talk. I think I would now maybe start from the end of the chat. There is a question on the meaning of liberal anxieties that is in the title. And if you could expand on what is meant by the selective part of liberal anxieties. Okay, okay. The selective part of the liberal anxieties is that what I use, where I use the term liberal, and you know, it's this sort of equal rights to freedom of all for all. And it is in my eyes, it is quite clear that this is not something that is, I mean, I think that you can very clearly see the bias vis-a-vis the women who wear a kneecap. So I think the kneecap is actually some sort of a test case where you can see how far all these so-called liberal ideas in the Netherlands are going, because the Netherlands of course likes to present itself as this very liberal country, but there are very clear boundaries to what is considered acceptable and what is not considered acceptable. So that is actually why I brought it in and I brought anxieties in because of, you know, this sort of centrality of the notion of discomfort. So it is both, it's not simply a legal issue, but it's also a very much an effective issue which has to do with people's affect how people feel about certain things. But what I would simultaneously like to highlight them that you cannot see these two separated from each other. So you can have, you know, all these implement these legal rules and regulations, but they also have an effective side to them and they actually produce particular effects. That is what I try to explain in my talk. And I thought it was a nice title. Maybe it would be interesting to know if there was any call for the face mask, the COVID face mask, curtailing communication in the Netherlands, whether the issue of communication was proposed as a major problem? Well, there is a little bit. There is a bit of that. And actually somebody at my own, at my own institute is going to do a talk about it to social psychologist. And she is going to make the argument. I think she is going to make an argument because she has previously done as a social psychologist, research about covering the face. And I've been a lot with her in discussion and debate because she does think it hampers. I mean, we both would agree that it hampers communication in some ways, right? But the question is, of course, to what extent does it hamper communication? So I'm not saying that she would be in favor of a ban, of a Nicar ban or anything like that. But I think she takes that side of it more seriously than I do. And I think that is because what happens with these social psychologists, they do these experiments. And what happens in all kinds of researchers and anthropologists, we engage, we talk to people. So we see people, not just simply, we don't simply see that a person, we do a test, an experiment with a person covering part of their face, but we see a person also moving around and speaking. And so I think the whole fact that covering the face may hamper communication in some ways may also be compensated for by other ways of moving your body, by raising your voice, using your voice expressively, by being more expressive with your eyes and with your hands, et cetera. So I mean, I don't know. I mean, it's an open question. But what she argues now indeed, and that's very interesting, is that this fact that we are wearing these face masks, that it's really problematic because we don't smile to each other, no more. So we actually shoot your smiley on it and it will make people more happy. I mean, I'm paraphrasing it a bit here, huh? So, but what she does not take into consideration then what makes it difficult to actually do this as, to study this is that at the same time, we have the one and a half meter distance. So I think actually that much more important than the face mask, the fact that you don't see part of the person's face and that this has an effect for communication is the fact that we have to physically distanciate ourselves continuously from others. And you cannot separate the two from each other, I think. So yes, there are some people who would make an argument that it's more difficult to communicate with face masks. But I think the main argument that has been made is the argument of freedom. You know, we are no longer free to express ourselves. And it's really a beautiful argument because it's the same argument that Nicabes could make. We are no longer free to be present in the public as we want to. So this is really a very strong limitation of our freedom of expression. As expression is, you know, in terms of dress, clothes, et cetera. And this is of course the very same argument that Nicabes could make. They could not just go for the argument that it's freedom of religion. Their freedom of religion is impeded, but also their freedom of expression. There are lots of questions, Annalis, on the chat. So I don't even know where to. Did I ask a question? Sure, yeah. It was minus about three. So surely when you pointed out the fact that the face mask is supposedly worn for reasons of health when the highest health authority has said it has no beneficial effect. So obviously there's no legality in their usage of this kind of excuse. So why has there not been a legal challenge made to this ban so that perhaps it could be done via the Council of State? I don't know what the powers of the Council of State are, but you said that they weren't in favor. So if they are, as it were, on board, surely the highest court in Holland could have a case brought to have this absurd and prejudiced piece of legislation and got rid of. Surely that should be preceded with, that's one question. The other thing with regard to has there been any actions to insolidarity, Christian women wearing the neck up in combination with perhaps wearing a cross to show them up for what they are, just bigoted people. And presumably then they won't get into trouble because they'll realize they're Christian or even men doing so. Whether or not there have been good actions taken which would have a lot of publicity and cause a grave amount of embarrassment to the Dutch authorities. And the last little thing is with regard to if people are made uncomfortable for people by seeing people wearing the neck up, what about other people being uncomfortable when a lot of people wear their noses pierced there, their tongues pierced, whatever, or other people seeing skinheads which makes them feel really afraid or people wearing the revealing clothing which upsets other people, what about these? These are equally disturbing for some sectors of society. So it doesn't seem to be any, yeah, it's not, it's obviously, yeah. Thank you. That was well, I think it's also good because you summarize some of the other questions. So Annelies. Yeah. Well, I think the assumption behind it is that there is a particular rational logic here. And I think the problem is that that rationality is in some ways completely lacking. In, with respect to the Council of State, the Council of State is an advisory body. So it can only give advice. It's a very heavily, it's a very important advice but they actually, the Council of State has already advised against this law. So there's not much more that the Council of State could do in this case. Now, the fact that people could actually take legal action, it has sort of been preempted by the fact that now it is allowed in public transportation to actually wear a NECA because of the obligation to wear face, to wear face masks. So that wouldn't work anymore. Nonetheless, there is an important thing and that is that when we have a new law is in three years, the new law needs to be evaluated. So there is now a group of people that is continuously looking at the legal possibilities to actually challenge the law. So that within the next two years, we will be able to get this law of the books again. That's that. In regards to that, surely there could be the case brought to the European Court of Human Rights post COVID so that this excuse for not wearing them, for wearing the mask or not wearing the mask is only for the COVID period. So of course, that would not pertain to afterwards. So if a case is brought and it takes a very long time, by the time it's actually heard, it will be in the post COVID era anyway, wouldn't it? Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's very true. And people are looking into this and there is somebody from the law department actually very active in this field. I think the European Court, there is a possibility that the European Court of Human Rights, the French case was of course disastrous, right? Because the argument there was for living together is more important than the arguments that the women had brought. But in the Dutch case, it's a bit different and the Dutch case is a bit different because it's only a partial ban. And now you may think that a partial ban is less important, so it would stand less chance but it actually stands more chance because with a partial ban, there are other more proportionate measures that could be taken and that is the house rules. So there may be an opening there, yes. The point, actually that's actually a very interesting, I wanted to, I was thinking about including it but I had already a lot of pictures. There's actually a very interesting case of at a gay pride, there's a number of men that wear a kneecap as a strong statement about, because sometimes this is also done, they still make, they put a burka on actually and very colorful ones. And sometimes this is simply done to make fun of women wearing a burka, but in this case, it was very clearly a political statement against the ban. And they were members of the Social Democrat Party and the party was not amused at all. So they got very heavily censored. But there are these actions are being taken by people, time and again, they are small scale actions but they all, you hope that they will get a certain momentum and they will amount to something. There's, the analyst, there are a lot of questions also that tie into this, for example, Iris or Iris has, do you want to ask it yourself? Well, I just asked which parties, sorry, which parties actually voted to lift the ban? Which of the two parties you mentioned? To temporarily lift the ban that is dank, dank is a political party that is mainly focusing on the rights of migrants or it has a strong, strong focus on that. It's a small political party, they have three seats in parliament, I think, and the green left, that was the only other party that voted in favor of temporarily lifting the ban. Okay, so Iris or Iris, would you like to ask the question and mute yourself? Yeah, yeah, sure, thank you. Yeah, no indeed, the question indeed of the, if this ban could be reversed, you actually answered because there will be a review perhaps in two years. And I was just very intrigued by also seeing the SGP, which is a Christian party being against that statement of like, let's recognize Muslim citizens. What is there like some religious argument involved as well and how does that play into that freedom of religion and secular state and everything? Yeah, the freedom of religion is not, of course, not freedom of religion for everybody and the SGP is actually an extremely conservative and an extremely Islamophobic party. So they are very explicitly for the rights for Christians. They're actually with great effort, and the SGP has been pushed to allow women to become full members of the party or very much, they don't have any women in parliament. They for until very recently, they would not allow women to be voted in any political position because they think that the man is the person who is supposed to represent women in politics and women should not be doing that themselves. One could imagine, of course, the uproar this would cause, right, if a Muslim would say that. So we usually have these comparisons and we use the political party statements from the SGP, from this particular Christian party. And if you put Islam or Muslim there, you immediately see what would happen if any Muslim party will do that. They would be completely marginalized and outside. But the SGP, they are our own, they're our own people, they're right, right? They're our own people. So they very much emphasize that the Dutch nation is built on Christianity and not on Islam. So that is their reason why. So they are, first of all, they're not so much for equal representation whatsoever, also not for men and women. But then they have a very strong pro-Christian agenda and Christian in the sense of, in a very conservative, very, in a quite a reactionary way, I think. I wanted to ask you a question quickly because there are also lots of other questions, but I think that it's something that I resonate with some of the other comments. I was wondering whether you think that precisely the fact that the Muslim women wearing the niqab are Dutch, they're not like newly arrived immigrants who are allowed some extent of exoticism or different. Actually makes it more intolerable for the liberals that it is within. So it's not. I think that is absolutely true because the first idea was, and again, it comes up because I think that's what people like to think sometimes. Again, in parliament, it comes up, these new immigrants need to adapt to Dutch culture. Well, if you are talking about converts and if you're talking to Moroccan Dutch people who have been born and raised in this country, they are Dutch, they are part of Dutch culture. So it becomes a very painful for people who find this in a front to our culture, to actually have to include these people in the nation. So it's much more problematic. Like if you would have recent immigrants, et cetera, they are vulnerable, right? You can uplift them. You can put a whole paternalist machinery you can put out there as it were. Maybe I sound a little cynical, but I do think it's true. But when you have people who are self-confident and who have been raised in this country and who make choices that for some people, that to some people are completely incomprehensible, then it becomes much more problematic. And that is also why I ended with the whole idea that it is this self-confident generation that really is one of the reasons why there is such a strong backlash. Yeah, thank you, Anis. Simran, do you want to ask your question? Simran? Yeah, thank you. First of all, thank you so much for the presentation. It was extremely insightful in bringing out these structural relations and also the differences within the feminist movement as you've been talking about. My query was actually to do with street-level bureaucracy. I understand that the ban itself came in a year ago, but as such, and maybe it's to do with the COVID lockdowns and such, but there has, I think you mentioned only about four cases that came up under the law. Four warnings, yeah. Four warnings. Exactly. And I wondered that it's appeared as if the law and given the fact that there's been enough resistance to it for good reason, and there's even been strategic efforts that the movements have come up with in finding supports, buddies, and ways of bringing in it symbolically. So I wondered whether the street-level bureaucracy, in fact, had a way to resonate with the movement itself. Was that something that, you know, if you could shed some light on and what is their discourse? We're referring to people like, you know, the bus drivers, the security guards, et cetera, right? And policemen. I'm referring to the policemen, basically. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The state. How is the state, actually, and how is the state, the state? How is the state, actually, because if they're just four instances, I know you say that there are only 500 women, less than 500 women who wear it, but there are also strategic efforts against it. So that would have increased the number. And I think this is completely uninterested in this. I think it's a huge hassle. They don't want to be called out, you know, for the fact that there is a woman wearing a face veil at an health center with a child and then they have to force a remover or find her. I mean, that's not the idea of what, you know, although there is, of course, also, I mean, I should not be too completely optimistic because you also find amongst these people also supporters for builders, right? So I mean, it's not, you cannot make a general statement, but generally speaking, professionally speaking, it does run sort of against the sort of the hierarchy in what are important tasks and what are less important tasks. And you have to just, I mean, if you think about how many women are murdered every year, if you think about the huge numbers of child abuse, if you think about the huge numbers of women who are beaten up in family situations, et cetera, these issues are obviously so much more important than a person, you know, putting on a face cover that it's completely out of proportion. So I always say also, you know, if you really want to do something, if you're really interested in doing something against women's oppression, it's a bit odd to focus on this hunger to 500 women. Shouldn't you focus on a category that is much more facing much more problems? And I think this is also something that resonates with, you know, the police officers because from the, well, the mayor of Amsterdam actually said in the beginning, I'm not gonna do this law. And of course, he got a lot of criticism because you can't just simply say, I'm not gonna do this law, right? I mean, that is going a bit far. I can understand that. But then she changes it, but it does not have a high priority for our police force, which is of course completely understandable if you look at the more regular problems that the police force is confronted with. So it's also very easy to have, you know, so it's both from the top, I think, of the police organization that really does not find this an interest and find this an high priority topic. And it's also from the regular policemen on the ground. Some of them, you know, you always find these these particular characters who are very unpleasant. We've all been confronted with them probably in our lives one moment or another, who are simply unpleasant characters. So you may meet one of those people, but on the average, you know, this is not something that people really, you know, why people would join the police force. All right. Thank you so much, yeah. Thank you, Annelies. I think maybe one last question and then we should thank Annelies for the wonderful talk. There is anyone wants to, anyone who has written the question down in the chat wants to take the floor and it's so much nicer speaking about communication for your voice to express it. Genine? Is she still there? Some people have. Where's Genine? So if she's not there, maybe we want to ask a question. Oh, she's there. Genine, do you want to ask? Yes, I'm here. I'm sorry. You caught me because I know you can. You caught you like in the classroom. You can have a comfortable summer during this talk. Many thank Annelies. This was really an extremely interesting talk and I was particularly interested because I'm located in Switzerland and we will be voting on a work event actually in I think two months or something. So we have all these discussions now going on. And I had two questions, but on the first one you already answered because this question about, well, these are Dutch women. So I think this makes really a difference when it comes to all these debates. And the second one is like kind of what happened after this law? I mean, has there been much more women putting on a face veil in terms of a reaction as a feeling like stigmatized and discrimination, et cetera, or didn't it matter at all basically? Because I always think that this kind of symbolic politics it also triggers reactions obviously. And one of the reactions would be that, well, you do these things, you know? So what happened in this regard? Yeah, no, no, this also happened. It actually did happen because one of the women who is actually very active, she started wearing, she was thinking already about wearing a knee cap but she wasn't quite convinced yet. But this was for her the last moment. This was for the moment to actually go and do it. So it does happen. One always remains to be seen how long people will do it. And I saw it depends whether, you know, they really, it becomes more of a religious, it gets more of a religious meaning to them. I mean, it depends how the religious meaning develops further in their lives. So I mean, it's hard to say actually how this, what will happen in the future. But there are cases, there definitely are cases, but there are also women who have given up wearing the face veil in the course of the last years because they consider it too dangerous. So it's both, but I always say, well, it's not a very, you know, I would not call it a victory for the government when people no longer wear a face veil because they feel that it's too dangerous to do so. I think that is, you know, not the kind of politics that we would like to support. Of course, thank you. And obviously, once this problem is over, there will, I mean, there will always be a wielders inventing another one. Oh yeah, there will definitely be something else. So I think there is, there is, there is a last comment, I guess, which is interesting because it's a proposal for a research project from Christine. Yes. Christine, do you want to just put it as a last comment to Annalise or do you want me to read it? Here she is. Yeah, I'm here. Thank you so much. Okay, hi Christine. Hi, this was great. No, I was just thinking, I mean, you already started thinking here about ways in which a comparison between the ban on face covering and the injection to wear medical masks may be a very productive way of studying secular and liberal anxieties and maybe also different ethics of their self. So you already touched on these different dimensions. Do you think that this could really be developed into a full-fledged anthropological comparative project and will we do that and what would it look like? Oh, I don't know what it would do. I was just starting to think about it because I do think it's very interesting because it also went and I didn't completely answer the question about the liberal anxiety, of course, because there's also this strong anxiety now in the country amongst the certain groups in the population who are really very concerned about this obligation to wear face masks. So it's a really, it's a very much a situation that is influx at the moment and I'm just trying to follow it and see how this develops. But I do think it's important because I do think it's very, if you want to make any kind of comparison that you also need to take into consideration how people actually view the fact that you actually wear a face mask, whether you see this as a positive or a negative thing, I think that would no doubt have some kind of effect. I mean, I would think my hypothesis would be that that would have some kind of an effect and I would be interested in looking into that because this topic will never leave me. Yeah. How can we help people out there? Can we be emailing members of the government? How can we actually change a situation, do something meaningful? Any suggestions? At this moment, well, I think that we, what we are doing at the moment is, in the Netherlands is just simply keeping this topic on the table, keeping, you know, keeping writing, writing pieces in the Dutch papers et cetera, about how hypocritical, because that is of course the term that comes up, right? This is so hypocritical, especially when you see that poster, you know, please put on a face mask, but you're prohibited from wearing any cap. I mean, come on, get real, you would think. But anyway, this again may change, of course, because in December, one December, the law will change again and the law will be that you need to wear face coverings, face masks in all enclosed spaces, not outside, but in enclosed spaces. So that will then probably mean that they will follow the same thing as public transportation, that they would allow people then to wear any cap. So you're hopeful, huh? We have some hope. Well, we will see what happens actually. So as there are already, as I said, there are people looking into the legal side, you know, in which way we can take this to a European level or can have any kind of influence on this. Anelis, thank you so very much for this really. We failed to read out the many compliments for your talk from the chat. Everyone was really thankful and really engaged by the presentation. And of course, if anyone wants to know more about Anelis' research, she has a website and you can go and read her articles and books and know more about this. I would just like to end the seminar today by obviously against thanking Anelis and maybe giving the floor to Kim to announce our next seminar next week and the procedures, because there will be some small changes in the way that we handle the technical part of the seminar. You are muted, Kim. Yeah, again, thank you, Anelis. It was so interesting. I think, you know, I'm going to go away from this and do a lot of different reading on different areas. And I think there's just so much that we could discuss here. We do have... Thank you for your support also. Thank you. And then we do have another session coming up next week. So it is nearly the same time. So it'll be five till 6.30. Though obviously we do tend to overrun on some of these events. So we'll see. I have put the Eventbrite link into the chat. So you will see it there. And it's white privilege and shortcuts to anti-racism. What we're going to do with the event is you'll still sign up through the Eventbrite. But what I'm going to do is add everybody to the Zoom call. So you shouldn't have to put in a password coming into the call. So, and I will be sending out an email at three o'clock next week to let you know that that's all been done and give you any kind of extra instructions that you might need for the event. So please do feel free to sign up to that link that I've put in there for you. And again, each week we will have subsequent links that come on. And these can also be found on the main SOAS website and also on our Facebook page for SOAS as well. So please do come along to the events. There's so many different discussions that we're having as part of them. In terms of the recording of this event, I'm just going to go through it with Annalise just for the pictures that were included in some of the slides. But we will have a version of this for you to listen back to again afterwards. And I will be emailing that out to you all with the appropriate passwords to access that as well. Thank you so much, Kim. Thanks, everyone, and see you all next week. Thanks, Annalise, so much. Everyone is dropping really enthusiastic. That's embarrassing. See you next week for the wonderful Miriam Urah talk on shortcuts to white privilege and anti... Sorry, white privilege and shortcuts to anti-racism. And yeah, have a good night, everyone. Thank you again, Annalise. Together with the recording, you will also receive, I think, the comments in the chat, so... Oh, that's nice. That's nice. Thank you, everyone. It will be interesting to see. Okay. Bye. Thank you very much. Bye. Thank you, everyone. Bye. Bye-bye. See you, everybody. Bye. Bye.